Ores are defined as being deposits of one or more minerals that are economically recoverable at the present moment.

In Italian there is not a word to distinguish between a mineral or minerals mined for industrial purposes, and the minerals that are kept in museums or as the object of study in laboratories. In Italian mines, the term minerale, mineral, is used very generically to define both an untreated mineral and a group of valuable minerals with their gangue.

The nomenclature used by other languages is much more precise. Ore is translated in German as Erz,Minerai in French. These words are used to identify any material extracted from below ground, ranging from metals to coal, from diamonds to tar, from oil to clay, from mineral water to geothermic energy, etc. Minerals are translated in German and French respectively as Mineralien and Mineraux. In Italian there is again the problem ofusing the same word for two concepts. Generally the same common word “minerale” is used for all valuable minerals: minerali metallici and minerali non metallici.

On this website we present the most interesting postage stamps on the subject of mines and minerals issued by different states.

In this section we can see the most importantpostage stamps, issued by sovereign states, without pretension to list all postage stamps issued on the world.